Evil Echinoderms

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Ever since I can remember, I have longed for the ocean. Not a good swimmer, and not one to eat the myriad creatures that fill its immense waters, I find myself nonetheless drawn to its endless pounding surf and salt spray. Even before I’d read Rachel Carson’s The Sea Around Us, discovered the eternal fascination of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, or had even heard of H. P. Lovecraft, I knew that I belonged to the ocean. It need not compete for my affection. It had already won. With family visiting this weekend and with an unseasonably warm March weather-system, we went down to the Jersey Shore yesterday to visit my old friend. Sandy Hook is a peninsula that juts up from New Jersey toward New York City, a sandbar of undeveloped free ocean access administered by the National Park Service. During the summer it can be intensely lined with fishermen and sun-worshipers, but in March it was a reasonable place to be. Sea creatures are abundant when left alone, and we saw our first harbor seal of the season, along with a galaxy of sea stars. These echinoderms had eluded me thus far; we’ve been to the shore several times during our Jersey days and had never discovered any. One large sea star had been stranded in an evaporated tide pool. Compassion overcame me and I carried it down to the surf to offer it a chance for continued survival.

Miserable sinner?

Recently I reread Jonathan Edwards’ horrific yet classic sermonic masterpiece, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Vividly depicting a furious deity barely capable of restraining his repressed wrath directed toward wicked human beings, but for an uncommon dose of misplaced compassion, Edwards suggests we all deserve ghastly destruction. Edwards underscores one of my recurrent observations about religion – it is a means of control. The great Puritan divinity only accepts penitent Puritans, all others go directly to Hell, not passing Go, not collecting their two-hundred dollars.

As I held that helpless sea star, destined for the cruel, drying rays of an unclouded sun, I did not think of its multiple transgressions. Murderous predators, sea stars consume other sea creatures, including their own kind, in the constant struggle for survival. This one had obviously had a successful run and had grown to an impressive size. I felt no rage, no desire to destroy this killer. Instead, I saw a radiant example of a being evolved to live in an environment that I can not even comprehend, just doing what it needs to get along in its undersea world. And I recognized the wrath of God for what it really is – one man’s unfulfilled plan to decide the destiny of his fellow creatures.

Missing Links

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Dinosaurs hold a fascination like few other creatures. Perhaps it is because of their exotic and tragic rise to dominance and their meteoric plummet to obscurity. Maybe it is because of their impossibly creative adaptations to their environment leading to frills, fans, and pointy bits in unexpected places. It might even be that they reveal our own future to us. Whatever the reason, dinosaurs still rule.

In the news yesterday, a man was arrested for stealing a dinosaur. Not a Jurassic Park living model, but a fossil excavated from private land in Montana. A few years back I took my family on a dinosaur-based trip to the west. Trundling across the endlessly flat eastern half of Wyoming, I insisted that we turn down a rutted and washed out dirt road to an obscure site where dinosaur footprints had recently been discovered. Rolling into Red Gulch (seriously!), we were, surprisingly, not the only people there. Staring down at my feet next to the fossilized prints of some ancient carnivore was like feeling the very pulse of evolution. There was no fear of divine retribution here, just a sense of tangible continuity with a long and very distant relative on the tree of life. Creationists insist that dinosaurs and other creatures were each separately created, fearing, I suppose, an interspecies miscegenation, in keeping with their overall fear of sexuality. I was envisioning myself shaking claws with cousin dilophosaurus.

There be monsters here

Over the years we’ve made many dinosaur trips, stopping at dinosaur museums in North and South Dakota, Montana, and Colorado. Once, at Makoshika State Park in Montana, where you can walk along and see dinosaur fossils in situ, we heard a couple exclaim to the flustered park ranger, “but how can that be when the world is only 6000 years old?” Dinosaurs are symbols. They represent the ultimate in stature and environmental dominance, while at the same time hosting brains that struggled to rival a humble grapefruit. As I read the other, more serious, headlines I realize how much we are like our very distant cousins.

Who Owns History?

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Jordan has been asking for the Dead Sea Scrolls to be given back by Israel. During the Six-Day War of 1967 some of the ancient documents were absconded by Israel, according to the Jordanian point-of-view. (Nothing in the Middle East is every truly neutral or non-biased.) According to the newspaper, now Jordan wants them back.

This controversy is part of a larger trend for nations to demand “their” antiquities from foreign powers who have claimed and displayed them (in many cases) for large numbers of people to see. They are part of the world’s heritage and the modern day countries from which they emerged want them back. Why? To bolster national pride? Because of their inherent cultural value? To draw in tourist crowds who are interested in antiquities? The ownership of history is a touchy question. History itself belongs to the entire human race while individual artifacts may be stolen, purchased, or destroyed. Some are in the hands of major museums, minor museums, or in the houses of private collectors. Nations struggling for international respectability often want their heirlooms back, and this is only natural. At the same time, these nations may not have the infrastructure to preserve the artifacts securely. Think of the Baghdad Museum. When any government becomes unstable national treasures are at risk.

The Dead Sea Scrolls owe much of their public appeal to scandal. The story of their discovery and sale, rich with intrigue and skullduggery, is widely known. They capture headlines like 2000-year-old sex symbols; their chic name and aura of mystery assure public interest. As a scholar of the Hebrew Bible, however, I have always found the Ugaritic texts to be of far greater importance. Nevertheless, while living in Wisconsin some years back, and teaching at Nashotah House, I arranged a field trip to the Field Museum in Chicago where a roving Dead Sea Scroll exhibit was settled for a limited time engagement. The seminarians were excited, and we decided to make a family trip of it. My daughter was a pre-schooler at the time, and we towed her along to be acculturated. In a dimly lit room, the feeling of an authentic Middle East chaos attended the display, people wandering blindly around, not quite sure of what they were looking at (this based on overheard conversations). People wanted to be near history, even if they didn’t know why. I had seen the famous scrolls in the Shrine of the Book some years before, but it was easy to feed off the excitement. When we got home we asked our daughter what she enjoyed the most from the bus ride and day out. “Seeing the Dead Sea Squirrels,” she replied.

History involves seeing what we want to see. Nobody owns it. Everybody owns it. Who should keep the artifacts? I don’t know. It seems that history is larger than petty desires for cultural fame. But then, that is what history records — our desires to stand out from the crowd.

Is the Truth Under There?

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Each semester I introduce my Hebrew Bible students to the dangers of “biblical archaeology.” Not that there is any wrong-headedness in excavating sites of importance to ancient Israel, but I warn them of requiring proof for religious beliefs. Early archaeologists digging in the lands of the Bible were open about their agendas — “proving” the Bible to be “true.” The problem is proof is certain only in mathematics, not in matters of faith. Truth cannot be known, but must be believed. When archaeologists excavate the unknown, they cannot know in advance what they might find.

As a young academic wannabe, I volunteered at Tel Dor in the summer of 1987. Before the introductory orientation sessions Dor was only a shadow of a reference to one of King Solomon’s administrative cities mentioned in 1 Kings; I knew nothing of its location or importance. I’d had enough of seminary to be skeptical of many truth claims even then, and the irreverent outlook of many of my fellow diggers underscored the secular nature of the venture. We were digging for the truth, but we might not recognize it when we found it. Apart from the scorpions and tarantulas, we unearthed many mute trinkets from Israelites silenced by time. My square team was assigned to the city gate; we were seeking the coveted fourth chamber to place the city in a Solomonic context.

To the best of my knowledge, our humble efforts did not prove the Bible was true. After manually hauling out tons of dirt, we found what appeared to be a gate chamber and perhaps even a rubbish heap. Of these two features the rubbish heap was the more interesting to me. Here it was that the cast-offs of ancient life had been consigned to oblivion only to be rescued by bewildered strangers far in the future. Truth is often in what we hide. It may not be glamorous or worthy of biblical paeans, but it is that part of our lives that we discard. Finding “Solomon’s” gate proved nothing, but what “his” people threw away contained nuggets of the truth.

Is the Truth Under There? Tel Dor 1987

Towers of Babel

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Yesterday I ran across a graphic on the Awilum blog that juxtaposed the tower of Babel with the Burj Dubai, the world’s tallest structure, to be completed next month. Perhaps it is a “guy thing,” but I can’t stop being fascinated by very tall buildings. An inveterate acrophobe, I avoided New York City until I was in my twenties and I was gritting my teeth the entire visit the first time I went to the top of the Empire State Building. Although they frighten me, I can not keep away from them. Driving through Chicago while living in the Midwest, I always kept a wary eye on the Sears Tower, lest it should fall my way. When the Society of Biblical Literature met in Toronto, I braved the CN Tower and even stood on one of the thick glass plates that give a bird’s eye view of the ground far, far below. Now there is an even taller building that fully deserves the name “sky-scraper.” At 818 meters, the Burj Dubai in the United Arab Emirates soars far beyond other efforts at the ultimate masculinity. It will be nearly twice as high as the Empire State Building when it is completed.

Gnu view from Wikipedia

Joseph Campbell, the late mythographer from Sarah Lawrence College, has had an enormous impact on the study of myth. As a specialist in Ugaritic mythology I find many points of disagreement with his assessment of mythic symbiosis, yet he once said something that has stayed with me ever since. In his Power of Myth video, he states that societies show their values by their tallest buildings. This statement is perfectly justifiable — the amount of resources required to erect enormous buildings does show a dedication to a quasi-divine purpose on the part of a society. Campbell’s example was the medieval cathedrals, and for anyone who has visited a medieval town this is easily affirmed. (St. Vitas Cathedral in Prague and St. Andrews Cathedral in Scotland confirmed this for me.)

The Hebrew Bible, however, casts another view on tall structures. Buildings such as the Tower of Babel are the ultimate in a Judaic assessment of hubris. Genesis 11 makes short work of Babel, stating that God has to stoop down to see this great effort, yet he feels threatened by it nevertheless. Our towers today demonstrate our conspicuous consumption, yet I can’t help but be impressed. Where some see only shifting sand atop endless pools of petroleum, other visionaries see the tallest structure on the planet. Just thinking about it, I find myself clenching again. I don’t plan a visit there anytime soon, but it is in the neighborhood of Babel, for those who speak the language.

Highway Homiletics

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“Over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house we go,” is an assertion to be taken literally in my case. Crossing the Delaware River and trekking through the forests of Pennsylvania are the only means to reach my childhood home from New Jersey. Each time I make the trip I am amazed at how strident the highway preaching along the way has become. Signs on both the interstates and the backroads announce the truths of a certain vociferous brand of Christianity that maintains that everyone must think that way or spend an eternity in hell. Having experienced this kind of fear-driven faith firsthand, I can’t protest too much without being labeled a hypocrite, but some of what I observed over the river and through the woods leapt out at me anew this Thanksgiving.

Firstly it seems that Jesus saves big rocks. Several large, obtrusive boulders worthy of the land time forgot bear the message that Jesus Saves. Locally this form of homiletics can be as persistent as the Trust Jesus notes spray-painted on just about every interstate overpass between here and Illinois. A religiously aware lumber company in rural Pennsylvania hosts a sign declaring, “Read, Heed, Live & Obey the Bible!” When I think of lumber, I think of 2-by-4s and of their standard use of knocking sense into others who look at things differently. This sign said more than its owner might have intended. A few miles down the road I read, “Why not try Jesus? If you don’t like Him the Devil will always take you back.” The assumption, naturally, is that anyone reading the sign is already devil’s food.

One of the great things about freedom of religion and freedom of expression is that such messages declare their writers’ fervent beliefs, but they hold no force beyond the rhetorical. Having met many sincere believers in other faiths over the years, I do wonder what kind of good news such non-negotiable advertisements really send. Some of the writers, I believe, are railing against the godless world they see around them (although the number of churches along these backroads would seem to testify to religion a-plenty) while others can’t accept any form of any religion that differs from their own, even if it be a different flavor of Christianity. Perhaps it is time I put up a sign advocating a vegetarian version of Thanksgiving — no turkey need die for anyone’s sins. In some religions such a message is considered trustworthy indeed.

Marmots and Briny Deeps

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While driving through Utah some years back, I spotted a large rodent next to the road. Born with a need to announce automatically every land-animal I see while driving, I called out “there’s a marmot!” My wife, half-asleep, said “A Mormon? Where?” We were headed toward the Great Salt Lake with an ultimate destination of Dinosaur National Monument. Naturally we saw many more Mormons than marmots. The story of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has always fascinated me. The whole concept of the “Great Awakening” and “Burnt-over District” conjure images of apocalyptic vividness where nineteenth-century evangelists are shaking angry fists at the declining modern world around them and are warning of the imminent approach of an angry deity.

I naturally found it interesting when the paper declared yesterday that the Mormon Church has decided to back anti-homosexual discrimination legislation. This doesn’t mean the Latter-day Saints approve of the practice, just that they don’t want gays to be unfairly treated in the secular world. One of the implications of a changing world is that modern readers often lose sight of the fact that the world in which the Bible originated was a very different one than the one we inhabit. “Homosexuality” was not a lifestyle in biblical times, but that does not mean there were not men and women born gay. The real issue was the misplacement of “seed” that vital element that mysteriously led to new people. The only references to same-sex “love” in the Bible commend the depth of friendship. The only problem is where the seed ends up.

The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is an etiology for the Dead Sea. The major crime of Sodom, as even Ezekiel directly says, was lack of hospitality, not homosexuality. The city that does not extend hospitality to the needy and the traveler is truly wicked. It is buried under fiery brimstone covered with stagnant water. I dipped my pinkie into the Dead Sea and touched my tongue when I was there (this might explain my current state of mind). The saline brew was gut-wrenchingly revolting. So as we parked beside the Great Salt Lake a couple decades later, I decided to repeat the experiment. I was disappointed; nevertheless, if salty lake basins are a sign of God’s wrath we really ought to wonder whether the salinity will lighten up just a bit more now that an act of human decency has occurred in Utah.

GreatSaltLake

NASA-eye view of the Great Salt Lake

Care of the Dead

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Stretching back before the advent of writing, back before civilization itself began, people have shown reverence for their dead. Paleolithic era grave goods attest to care of the dead residing among the earliest strata of human behavior, and it is a behavior that continues to evolve to reflect the belief structures of the Zeitgeist. The idea of constructing cemeteries in a garden where family and friends might visit their departed is a relatively recent innovation. Increased population and concerns about epidemics led to the landscaped, garden-variety cemetery outside of populated areas in the 18th century. Before that graveyards could be located within the city itself, often near a church or sacred location.

While visiting Swan Point Cemetery in Providence, my niece asked me why people left pennies on gravestones (H. P. Lovecraft’s tombstone had one on it, and others around it). My thoughts went to Wulfila’s recent blog post on the Black Angel tomb in Iowa City and the pennies scattered there. I also recalled La Belle Cemetery in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin where a “haunted statue” was always richly endowed with pennies in her cupped hands. LaBelleThe specific form of penny offerings seems to go back to Benjamin Franklin’s burial, at least in America. A few years back while in Philadelphia, I saw for myself that people still leave pennies on Franklin’s grave in Christ Church Cemetery.

Franklin

Franklin pennies (and a few nickles)

There is no universally accepted reason explaining why Benjamin Franklin should have been the first to have received such treatment — in fact, I would argue that it is much older than Dr. Ben.

Money to accompany the dead has a long history. Pennies on the eyes or under the tongue of the deceased originated in the need to placate the ferryman across the river of — what’s it called? — Oh, yes, the river of forgetfulness. The classical Greek form of this mythic character is Charon, the boatman who punted the dead across Styx. He required payment, and since coinage had been invented, it was a convenient way to pay. (Today the truly devoted might leave a credit card in the casket.) The ferryman must have his pay, as the movie Ghostship warns, but the idea is much older still. The earliest references to being poled across the river go back to ancient Sumer, the earliest known civilization. As soon as people became civilized they began to pay homage to the gloomy captain of souls.

While in Prague just after it opened to western visitors, my wife and I stopped by the famous Jewish cemetery where the tombstones are so tightly packed in that they are barely legible. My wife asked why so many of the tombstones had smaller stones on top, placed there as dedications.JPrague I recalled having seen stones on tombs outside Jerusalem some years back, and I even had a student bring me a stone from Israel to keep as long as I promised to put it on her grave after she died. This practice in its recent form is associated with Judaism, but again, it has ancient roots. The building of cairns, or piles of stones, is often associated with the Celts or the pre-Celtic inhabitants of the British Isles. On our many wandering through the highlands and islands we saw several Neolithic examples in Scotland, particularly in the Orkney Islands. The practice of putting stones atop the dead also goes back to ancient times. One plausible suggestion is that it was intended to keep the dead in their graves. A more prosaic conclusion is that digging deep holes takes more work than hauling over a pile of rocks.

No matter what the origin of the practice may be, one of the surest signs of civilization is care for the welfare of the dead. Today a penny is easily left, costs the bearer little, and creates a memorable image for all who follow.

Love the Craft

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It is a cold, windy New England day in November. You find yourself in Providence. How can you not visit the gravesite of H. P. Lovecraft? I have mentioned Lovecraft before, in my podcast on Dagon, but that brief citation does not give credit to a man whose life provides episodes that feel strangely familiar to me. Barely known as a writer in his own lifetime, Lovecraft had difficulty finding employment and had a fascination with ancient gods. Indeed, I discovered Lovecraft while researching Dagon for a serious presentation and soon students were telling me about the Cthulhu (I would not dare attempt to pronounce) Mythos and how I had only scratched the surface of his writing.

Lovecraft’s fascination with ancient gods brought new life to forgotten entities. Dagon, despite being a major deity of ancient Mesopotamia, would likely have been completely forgotten by all but professors of arcane mythology had not Lovecraft resurrected him, albeit in a fishy form. His fascination with the protagonists of ancient myths, nearly forgotten deities, clearly influenced Neil Gaiman in his American Gods, and has preserved for the modern reader some of the fascination with powerful, ancient forces that show the insignificance of humanity. I found reading American Gods while in Providence a very humbling experience. Lovecraft also gave the world Arkham, the asylum of Batman fame, as well as Miskatonic University.

Along with Melville and Poe, Lovecraft deserves a place of honor in the pantheon of American literary explorers. The assortment of gifts left for him at his tombstone, including a small cairn, pennies, a pen, and even a note reading “thank you for the ideas,” attests his local fame. The prominence of his books at neighborhood bookstores assured me that I was not the only traveler to breathe in the air that Lovecraft exhaled. My visit also brought to mind a story that a friend of mine started to write some years ago. It had something to do with ancient gods coming back to life, although my friend had never heard of Lovecraft or Gaiman. Lovecraft’s spirit, it seems, may still be alive and well in Rhode Island and in the minds of other residents of Arkham.

Lovecraft

Rhode Island Blue

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Rhode Island is often overlooked as the smallest state, a place seldom happened upon by accident, somewhere that one has to intend to go. Drawn by family, I made a trip to Rhode Island and serendipitously learned the lesson of Roger Williams. Roger Williams was the founder of Rhode Island, and, for those only familiar with the Southern Baptist movement, a rather unbelievably liberal Baptist. The founder of the first Baptist church in the nation, Williams was also the advocate of a form of religious freedom that is still railed against today by conservative Christian factions that wish to make America a “Christian nation.”

FirstBaptist

Roger Williams' first Baptist church (in the country)

We are accustomed to religious propagandists today telling us that the “founding fathers” were Christians just like they are (simply not true), and that America should remain a “Christian country.” Roger Williams, although not often spoken of in the same tier as George Washington or Benjamin Franklin, classifies as one of our founders and he was an outspoken advocate of conscience as the guiding force behind religion, not state or federally mandated compliance. Rhode Island was offered as a “shelter for persons distressed of conscience.” It was a state where a mind was free to follow its lead.

I confess to overlooking Rhode Island often. But as a refuge for “Papists, Protestants, Jews, or Turks,” it is the Dreamland of religious liberty. Progressive to the point of welcoming Jewish believers and Muslims, Williams went as far as to declare, “none [should be] compelled from their own particular Prayer or Worship, if they practice any.” Even the unbeliever was welcome. How far the “religious right” has fallen from this original ideal of a humble Baptist who envisioned a homeland where residents were free to believe as their conscience dictated!

Rosslyn, New Texaco

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Back before Dan Brown had becoming the Most Important Human Ever, even before he published Angels and Demons, my wife and I visited Rosslyn Chapel in Roslin Glen, Scotland. While not actually seeking the Holy Grail, I had been doing some research on Celtic lore, ostensibly where the Grail legend originates, and so we made our way to the remote and (then) desolate site of this unusual church. Officially the Collegiate Chapel of St. Matthew, it is, without doubt, the busiest piece of architectural stonework I have ever witnessed. We went for the grail. We stayed for the art.

WikiCommons image, ours isn't this good

WikiCommons image, ours isn't this good

The research I had been conducting (finally published just last year as a contribution to a Festschrift for Nicolas Wyatt) involved the Mabinogian, a repository of Celtic mythology, and the legend of Bran. For sharing the name of a healthful breakfast cereal, Bran is renowned for also having had a life-restoring cauldron. He even made a journey to the netherworld and his head kept singing even after having been dissociated from his body. An uncommon hero indeed. All historical indicators, however, point to the cauldron as the original of the Holy Grail. Certainly the Bible does not mention it, nor does it appear very early in Christian mythology.

People, as Dan Brown’s financial independence loudly indicates, like a good conspiracy theory. There is a comfort in believing that a magical object of great power is out there somewhere and that a rather ordinary Harvard professor (!) might be able to find it, yet resist taking it. Far truer to life is Indiana Jones and the Final Crusade; people feel the need to touch, to control the power beyond themselves. Even at the cost of their lives. Despite the fact that the Grail is a fiction, it simply will not disappear — although no one can find it and it has never been seen. Faith tends not to be based on tangibles. This is attested every time Dan Brown makes his way to the bank and the population reads with wonder about meanings that simply don’t exist.

Devil Went Down to Jersey

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I have to confess to being a fan of Weird NJ. For those of you not fortunate enough to live in New Jersey, Weird NJ is an unconventional travel-guide published twice a year, celebrating the strangeness of the state. Ironically, I discovered Weird NJ while living in Wisconsin. I was attending the 150th birthday celebration of a couple of friends (combined ages, not paranormal!) where one of the gifts was the then recently published Weird Wisconsin. After the original magazine had caught on, books about individual states were commissioned and this was the first one I’d encountered. My wife knows that look in my eye, so on my birthday that year I had my own copy. Even though it is written for a decidedly non-academic readership, I learned more from it than most textbooks I’ve read. When New Jersey loomed large in our future, I added the book version of Weird New Jersey to my growing collection and soon came to rely on it as a repository of local folklore and interesting places to visit.

Thanks to Matt for permission to use his art, see Matt Can Draw for more!

(Thanks to Matt for permission to use his art, see Matt Can Draw for more!)
This short flight of fancy relates to religion in a very decided way. Within the pages of these publications many locations (popular with teenagers, I’m guessing) bear the moniker, “Devil’s —“ where the space may be filled by any number of nouns: Footprint, Kitchen, Pit, Pathway, Tree, or even Tea Table. This decided interest in naming places after the dark lord seems whelming, even for New Jersey, home of the infamous Jersey Devil. The need to have an evil entity to explain the darkness in our lives is very powerful. Certainly it is not limited to New Jersey as the well-known examples of Devil’s Tower, Devil’s Lake, and Devil’s Postpile attest (although mistranslation may frequently be responsible). Those cultures bound by a monotheistic outlook mark their fears with the Devil.

A relative latecomer to the Bible, the Devil had not been available for earlier attributions of evil. Thinkers of the pre-diabolical period reached widely varied conclusions as to who or what caused the troubles they experienced. Some blamed God while others simply accepted the vicissitudes of circumstance. (Then again, they didn’t have New Jersey as a frame of reference.) Once the Devil entered the picture, the problem of good and evil took on a sharper focus. That sharp distinction, however, frequently belies human experience where issues and situations are seldom as clean cut as they seem.

Bible Land

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Once upon a time I took a trip to visit a friend in West Virginia. I made the drive from New Jersey across parts of Pennsylvania and Maryland. Having grown up in Pennsylvania I never supposed it to be considered part of the “Bible Belt,” but it seems that some of the spillover may be making its way north of the Mason-Dixon line.

Interstate 78 has recently struck me as being highly evangelized. I saw a billboard reading “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” and remarked at how out of context this verse was taken. Last time I checked, the Bible tended to be concerned with Israel, not the United States. Further along I saw a church near Bethel, PA called the Assembly of Yahweh. Not being aware that there was confusion as to who the God of the Israelites was, it amazed me to see that they have their own radio station called “The voice of the Assembly of Yahweh.” This struck me as a missed opportunity; the real message could have come through more clearly with “of the Assembly” left out. Yet further along was an ominous billboard from a local Mennonite Church that sounded eerily like Amos. “You Will Meet God” it announced.

Storm's a-comin'

Storm's a-comin'

As I entered Maryland the sales tactics intensified. In Frostburg there was God’s Ark of Safety Church where an actual replica of Noah’s Ark is being built right along Interstate 70/68. Since the steel frame is all that was currently finished, I was glad that it hadn’t recently been raining. Perhaps a more recent translation of the Bible has updated gopher wood to Bethel steel. Further along I spotted a lighthouse atop a hill over a hundred miles from the nearest substantial body of water. This was the World Lighthouse Worship Center. While visiting an actual lighthouse on Lake Superior a few years back the docent informed me that lighthouses were now considered superfluous with the advent of Global Positioning Systems. (Shhh — please don’t inform them that science has again trumped a quaint piece of folklore! I can imagine that the lighthouse may be useful when the new ark is completed.) Along route 219 in McHenry, MD I saw “A House of Love Gathering Place” that I just couldn’t dissociate from the B-52’s for some reason. Just about on the border to West Virginia was the Fresh Fire Church of God.

The United States is truly an impressive reservoir of biblicism. Perhaps university administrators who believe the study of religion isn’t worth the meager salary of an assistant professor should take a road trip. It would be a learning experience.